


Exchange of Owls

by Azashenya



Series: Aza's Harry Potter 'Verse [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 04:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2719019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azashenya/pseuds/Azashenya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Head Mistress McGonagall trying to get Hermione to leave the Ministry and come teach at Hogwarts</p><p>Disclaimer: the characters and world belong to J.K. Rowling, I am merely borrowing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exchange of Owls

Hermione Granger-Weasley  
Department of Magical Races  
Ministry for Magic

Dear Hermione, I hope this finds you well. I'm sad to inform you that Professor Vector is retiring at the end of this year to spend more time with her family. This leaves me with the task of finding a replacement Arithmancy Professor. I know that you would be an excellent Arithmancy teacher and I'm hoping I can interest you in taking the position. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Yours Fondly  
Minerva McGonagall

 

Hermione turns the parchment over and runs her fingers over the broken wax seal, embossed with the Hogwarts coat of arms. She smiles to herself, recalling her years at Hogwarts and her Arithmancy classes with professor Vector. Then she leans back in her chair with a sigh to look around her office.

Her desk is covered with piles of paper. One pile holds the latest draft of the new treaty with the Goblins, another represents five years of campaigning towards changing the wand laws to allow the non-human races to use them, they've finally started making good progress there.

A shelf on the wall holds awards and mementos and small gifts her children have made her. Looking at it her eye falls on a faded badge leaning drunkenly against a rough clay pot. The letters S.P.E.W. are still clear on it. Between them she and Kreacher have made great progress both in improving conditions for House Elves and in getting them to actually accept some of the improvements. Even so there is still a long way to go.

Professor McGonagall  
Head Mistress's Office  
Hogwarts

Dear Professor McGonagall. I am well, I hope you are also. I'm sorry I can't help you with Arithmancy, there is still too much to do here. Best of luck finding the right person for the position.

Your student  
Hermione Granger-Weasley

 

Minerva sighs and folds the letter.

“I told you she wouldn't accept,” opines Dumbledore's portrait. “She is too involved with things at the Ministry to be pulled away so easily.”

She turns and frowns up at him. “I had to try,” she snaps. Then she shakes her head with another sigh. “Sorry, Albus, I just...”

“You just want her here, teaching. I quite understand.” He looks down at her, eyes twinkling. “Give her time.”

“I know.”

She fiddles with the letter a moment longer before tucking it into her desk drawer and turning her attention to finding someone else to fill the position.

 

~~~~

A number of years later:

Another school year is drawing to a close. Once again Professor McGonagall has the task of finding a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for the following year. This last one lasted two years, a record even with the influences of Voldemort fading. She can always ask the Ministry to lend them another Auror but that always feels like admitting defeat and she still has a few others she could write to first, starting with those she asked last time, and the time before, perhaps time has changed their answers.

Her first owl returns with a very short response:

Professor McGonagall

No. Ask Hermione.

Harry Potter

 

The second owl returns with a letter that is slightly longer but no more useful:

Dear Professor McGonagall

Hope you are well and all goes well with Hogwarts. Things are still very busy here, even with all the children away at school. You should ask Harry, I always thought he would make a brilliant Defense teacher.

Your student  
Hermione Granger-Weasley

 

Professor McGonagall puts the letter down on her desk and mutters, “He would and I did. He said no, again. He said to ask you, again.” But she doesn't write that down. Instead she turns her thoughts to who else she can try before she is forced to write to the Ministry to ask them to spare another Auror. Not the one she really wants, of course.

 

~~~~

Another owl flies from Hogwarts to London, this one to say that the current Transfiguration Professor has asked for a one-term leave of absence and could Hermione perhaps be able to manage a leave of absence from the Ministry to help out.

That owl flies back with a politely phrased 'no' and a list of other possible candidates Professor McGonagall might wish to contact.

 

~~~~

 

Their children have finished school and are getting on with their lives. Treaties have been signed and are being honoured. Anti-discrimination and non-human rights laws have been passed and are operating as well as may be expected. Yet, attitudes seem much as they always were, most wizards and witches having little to do with the other magical races in their daily lives.

Hermione is frustrated.

She is sitting at home, in the quiet kitchen of number twelve Grimmauld place, with a pile of paperwork she has brought home from the Ministry. Currently she is tapping her fingers while she reads yet another routine and very boring report. There is a soft hoot and a flurry of wings as a post owl interrupts her.

It drops a letter on the table in front of her and lands to perch on the back of a wooden chair, close enough for scritches and treats if she happens to have any to spare. Hooting softly it twists its head upside down to watch her.

Hermione smiles and fishes out a treat from the stash in her pocket to offer to the owl before gently petting the soft feathers on its head.

The handwriting on the front of the letter is very familiar and on the back is the Hogwarts seal.

Hermione Granger-Weasley  
The Kitchen  
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place

Dear Hermione

I've missed not seeing your Hugo or Harry and Ginny's Lily at school this year, I hope they are all doing well. Time goes too fast.  
The Board of Directors has approved my plans to start a new class next year on interacting with the other Magical Races, I'm hoping to be able to include information on their histories and cultures. I would love to have you in to teach it for the first year or so but I realise that you are probably too busy to take the class yourself. I would appreciate any help your department could provide me, both with building a curriculum and with finding someone to teach the class.

Yours most sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall

 

Hermione re-reads the letter, slowly at first then skimming faster, her gaze jumping from point to point. A new class teaching students how to get along with the other magical races, maybe a chance to learn to see them differently, to understand them. A chance to work from the bottom up to change attitudes that all the laws in the world can't touch... but... and...

Hermione's mind races with pro and cons and fragments of plans and speculation until her thoughts are fragmenting as she tries to think too many things all at the same time.

“Hey, Kreacher said you were in here wasting a perfectly brilliant Saturday afternoon with work,” Ron's cheerful cry interrupts her thoughts and she looks up to find him walking into the kitchen.

“How was the quidditch?” she asks him.

“It was great. The kids won this time, Lily manage to snatch the snitch right out from her father's nose, we decided to claim the only reason they beat us is 'cos Harry needs new glasses.” He laughs and strides over to give her a kiss. “You should have come, everyone missed you.”

Hermione smiles and shakes her head.

Ron notice the owl and reaches over to give it a scratch. “Who's the owl from?”

Hermione resists the urge to bury the letter and instead holds it up. “Professor McGonagall.”

“Another attempt to get you to take Defense for a year? She even tried asking me once, can you imagine me teaching at Hogwarts?”

Hermione gives him a chiding look. “Actually, yes I can. You know they've been sending Aurors to cover the class.”

“Well, everyone knows I didn't really have the grades to be an Auror, not properly.”

“Yes, and everyone knows that grades had nothing to do with why you're an Auror.”

In a bitter grumble, “Yeah, it was all having the right friends.”

Hermione growls with frustration and shakes his shoulder. “You're a real idiot sometimes, Ron Weasley. It was what you did and who you were not your friends or your grades that made the Aurors want you to join them. You proved yourself long before then, we all did: proved that we could and we would stand up against dark wizards. Of course they wanted to you join them.”

Blushing, Ron takes the convenient excuse of reading Hermione's letter.

“So, McGonagall's creating a new class?”

Hermione nods enthusiastically. “Yes, studying the other Magical Races. It'll be a great opportunity, a real chance to foster understanding and change attitudes.”

Ron smiles. “So you're going to take the position?”

“No. Well...” She looks across the table and gestures at the piles of papers. “No.”

Ron narrows his eyes, knowing that she's been bored and frustrated at the Ministry recently. He picks up a report at random and looks through it. It's a petition from a wizarding family complaining about the new Goblin Property laws, specifically about their great-great-great-grandfather's Goblin-made trinket that was returned to the Goblins on their grandmother's death instead of going to them as she put in her will.

“This is the sort of rubbish Percy should be dealing with, not you, he loves this sort of thing.”

“Percy's in a completely different department.”

“You know what I mean, you shouldn't have to be dealing with things like this, that's what underlings are for. Dealing with idiots whining about how the law shouldn't apply to them, hoping that if they're loud enough the compensation money will get increased to shut them up.”

Hermione takes the pages and glances through them. “Maybe.”

“Get many like that?”

“Quite a few, and a few who are insisting some old piece of junk is Goblin made and demanding a second opinion when the Goblins say it isn't.”

Ron shakes his head. Taking the papers from her hands he puts them back on the table.

“This stuff can wait and you need to get out. Let's go crash Harry and Ginny's dinner, I'm sure they won't mind, especially if we send an owl ahead to warn them.

“Then when we get home you can start drafting ideas for the class, McGonagall did ask for your help with that. You should talk with Kreacher about it, too. Then, on Monday, I'll visit Kingsley, see if the Ministry can spare you for a year or two.”

Hermione gives him an uncertain look. “You really think I should do this?”

Ron shrugs. “I know you're bored at work these days and that this has you excited.”

“But what about you? And the kids?”

“Rose and Hugo are both busy with their new jobs and lives, they don't need us on their doorsteps, and I can apparate to work just as easily from Hogwarts as from here.”

“You can't apparate from...”

“Inside the Hogwarts grounds,” Ron interrupts her with a grin. “I know. So maybe we'll get a place in Hogsmead and then you'll be the one with the long commute, having to walk or fly up to the castle while I apparate. Or maybe I'll take some time off and get a job in Hogsmead, I've always thought being a bartender would be a great job! Or... I could see if they need a new caretaker at Hogwarts, don't you think I'd make a good Filch? I could skulk in the corridors and scare the first-years.”

Hermione laughs. “I think you'd make a very bad Filch, you'd be tempted to help the troublemakers.”

“Well, maybe,” Ron admits with a laugh. “Just say you'll think about it, the teaching job, not me being Filch, and say you'll come out to visit our friends with me tonight.”

“I will.”

Ron wants to borrow the school owl to send their dinner note to Harry and Ginny but Hermione makes him fetch their owl while she sends a brief note back to McGonagall.

 

Dear Professor McGonagall

I'm just returning your owl before Ron takes advantage of it. I will start putting together some curriculum ideas for you tonight and will send you some notes soon. I am taking your first request under consideration.

You student always,  
Hermione Granger-Weasley

 

Hemione pauses to re-read the message. It feels stilted and needlessly cryptic but she isn't certain yet, despite the chaotic excitement of the idea. It's far too big a decision to make so lightly.

Before she can second guess herself into rewriting it without the final sentence, Hermione folds and seals the note and sends it off with the Hogwarts owl.

 

Professor McGonagall is sleeping on her cushion by the fire when the owl returns later that night. The sound of the owl tapping at the window wakes her and she takes a moment to stretch her old bones and claws before transforming from cat to woman and crossing the room to let the owl in. She unties the letter and gives the owl a treat and scratches before sending it off to the owlery for a well earned rest.

With a flick of her wand she lights the lamps and sits down. It took longer for this owl to return than in previous years which might mean a different response, or it might just mean that it took the owl longer to find Hermione.

She glances up at the sleeping portraits of her predecessors then unseals the letter.


End file.
